iPhone XS Max: Biggest screen, battery and iPhone price tag ever

Apple wasn’t kidding when it called this phone the iPhone XS Max. When you see it in person, there’s no question that this hulking behemoth deserves its name. It looks strikingly similar to an iPhone 8 Plus — already a big phone — that grew an even larger, better screen.

How large? We’re talking about a 6.5-inch OLED display that’s a hair bigger than the Galaxy Note 9‘s 6.4-inch screen. The XS Max (that’s “10-S,” not “excess”) isn’t just Apple’s largest iPhone ever. It’s also its most expensive — by a long shot — and has the highest-capacity battery on any iPhone. With such a massive, power-sucking display, it has to.

The iPhone XS Max starts at $1,099 for the 64GB version and climbs from there. That price tag is already $100 steeper than last year’s iPhone X and the brand-new 5.8-inch iPhone XS.

While the iPhone XS Max contrasts most starkly with the lower-rent iPhone XR, all three new iPhones for 2018 have the basics in common: iOS 12 software running the show, Apple’s new A12 Bionic chipset within, at least one 12-megapixel camera with a few new camera tricks and a 7-megapixel front-facing camera with Face ID to unlock the phone. (See below for all the specs and prices.)

Preorders start Friday and the XS Max goes on sale Sept. 21.

How the iPhone XS Max differs from the iPhone XS

Size: The iPhone XS Max is physically larger, standing at over 6.2 inches tall with a 6.5-inch screen. The Max XS literally hulks over the iPhone XS — see for yourself in the video above.

Display resolution: The XS Max has a whopping 2,688×1,242-pixel resolution for its OLED display, versus the iPhone XS’ 2,436×1,125 resolution screen. Don’t be fooled, though. Both phones have the same pixel density of 458 pixels per inch. That means whatever you watch on either screen will look sharp.